


cry havoc

by peradi



Series: once there was [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Animal Death, F/M, Gen, M/M, Prequel, Revolution, Skywalker Family Drama, fn-2187 was a stormtrooper, life before the revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:38:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6494014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots from lives before the revolution; the prequel to <i>have you heard</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> right so this is meant to be three chapters long: mainly character development, lots of hux because i like the bastard and felt bad that i killed him off so quickly in hyh. lots of flashbacks because i tried to write the prequels and that didn't work out too well so I'm just popping them in wherever 
> 
>  
> 
> also i am very bad at trigger warnings so for those of you who need them, the following fic will contain: violence, graphic violence, implied sexual assault, animal death and the inside of kylo ren's head. also abusive relationships and unhealthy obsession 
> 
> enjoy! as ever, your comments sustain me

_ Friend Finn will get better _ .

“Statistically speaking, that is highly unlikely. His lungs have been --”

_ FRIEND FINN WILL GET BETTER he has to he HAS TO -- _

 

_ \-- _

 

Once there was a boy who took a lightsabre to the back and --

Yeah. 

There’s no good way to end that story, is there?

 

\--

 

Here are some things Rey knows about death:

  1. People piss themselves when they die, or just before they die.
  2. When a man dies, his cock will often spring to life: a sad little stub.
  3. There’s no dignity in death. Corpses fart when you move them, long gassy exhalations that smell worse than the inside of a bantha.
  4. Bones are bleached white in a matter of months.
  5. People die for the stupidest of reasons. Because a bit of metal they thought was harmless turns out to be radioactive and they don’t get their meds in time. Because they were showing off to their mates, racing over the red flank of the desert on a rickety old speeder held together by prayer. Because they tried to take a bottle of water and a hunk of bread from a ten year old girl who hadn’t eaten in a week. Because the girl had a staff. Because the girl was frightened and didn’t know when to stop hitting. 
  6. A human body -- a fresh one -- is worth ten portions. 
  7. There’s no dignity in life either. You trade what you must so you can eat. 
  8. It takes fifteen blows to the head to kill a man stone dead. 
  9. Bones are bleached white in the sand very quickly indeed. Memories do not erode so easily. 



 

\--

  
  


_ Friend-Finn will get better. _

_ Friend-Finn will get better, he is kind and good and gentle and in the stories you tell me the kind and good and gentle always get better, this is what they do, because they are good, because they are kind. _

“Yeah, BB-8 -- that’s -- that’s what I say.”

_ That’s what you say and you are right, you are always right, he will be okay, he will be okay --  _

 

_ \-- _

 

“Drink something.”

“I -- “

“It’s water. Good water. There’s so much water here, so much of it, you know they have showers? Showers! All that clean, good water and you use it to wash sweat off yourself. Such a waste. Can you imagine. Can you imagine.”

Rey’s voice is aquiver. Her eyes downturned. Every angle of her speaks of exhaustion. 

“All that water,” she says, again. “You don’t know how much good you have and you -- you --” She coughs. Chokes. And when they tears come they are fierce and hot and silver, racing down her cheeks like meltwater, dribbling along the lines of her jaw. The inelegant, shuddering, snotty sobs of girl whose heart has been cut clean in two. 

 

\--

 

_ There’s a story about a cat.  _

_ No, bear with me. The idea is that you don’t know if this cat is alive or dead -- _

_ It’s in a box. The cat is in a box. Don’t ask why; it just is. The cat’s in the box and you don’t know if it’s alive or dead until you open up the box.  _

_ Open the box! _

_ No, no, no see the point is -- if you open the box then the cat is 100% dead or 100% alive and if you don’t then there’s a 50% chance that it could be alive and that’s better than a 100% chance that it is dead -- _

_ No. BB-8 there is no cat. There is no box. It’s a metaphor. I think. It’s -- _

_ Yes. Finn’s very ill. That machine is keeping him alive. Keeping him breathing. We don’t know if he can breathe on his own. _

_ Why don’t we turn it off?  _

_ Because -- _

_ Because there’s a story about a cat.  _

 

\--

 

Rey sleeps. She dreams:

"You know, there was once a powerful Sith Lord who could bring people back from the dead. The Dark Side of the Force can do that."

"Can it put your face back together?" Rey spits. Kylo Ren has a jagged liver-coloured scar from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth. She did that to him. She remembers the white snow, the grey sky, the savage joy. Her teeth, sharp in her mouth.

He smirks. "Finn won't live, you know. That machine is keeping him alive, and he's dreaming, but his body is completely broken. I can save him."

"Go fuck yourself," says the scavenger from Jakku. 

 

\-- 

 

A long time ago, on a planet that doesn’t exist anymore, a woman had a baby. It was perfect in every way, apart from the fact it wasn’t breathing. Tiny lungs. A tiny heart. Tiny filigree veins, skin as soft as velvet: perfect. And dead. 

The next year brought another. And three years later there was another; and four years later there was another; and the woman wept bitter tears, for nothing that came from her body lived.

And then one day her husband brought home a baby girl. “She’s -- “ he starts, but the woman holds up a hand. She knows where the baby girl came from. 

“What’s her name?”

“Leia.”

And there’s a question there, a question curdling the air: the second part of the name. There was a marriage, Breha knows, and that means that Padme died a Skywalker and yet. And yet. Breha remembers small limp bodies at the temple, a sky turning red with blood, a woman so full of love who wept and wept and wept.  _ Let me tell you, _ Padme had not said, had never said, had not needed to say because Breha is a woman and a wife and a mother (all her children perfect and beautiful and dead) and she does not need to be told what her friend thought,   _ how awful it is, how hideous, when a man loves you and only you and --  _

“Leia Organa,” says Breha.

 

\--

 

The rubble is cooked. Crippled. It leans almost apologetically against itself. Bodies scattered like petals after a lovers quarrel. The reek of blood hot in the air. 

Luke Skywalker collapses. He  _ wails _ . Leia has never heard a sound like it. Animal. Clawing from the stomach, straight up the spine. 

(What? Did you think he would stand stoic, still, a sentinel? Shed a single tear? Turn and head for the edge of the galaxy like a man of stone and metal? No. He’s Luke Skywalker. He loves with his entire being, loves with everything he has, and he worked so hard, tried so hard, he was not his father, he  _ was not _ , he was good and kind and pure and did everything right --)

(And it wasn’t enough.)

His thoughts in her head:  _ nothing we build lasts Leia can’t you see can’t you see can’t you see -- _

_ Nothing a Skywalker builds lasts. _

And he _howls_. Twenty four children dead on the ground. And he weeps not just for them, not just for himself, but because now he knows how Ben Kenobi felt, now he knows the pain that his father caused and for the first time in decades he despises Anakin Skywalker. Because this is what he did. Those small, broken bodies. Those pathetic bundles of flesh and bone. Once, these children were nothing but shining potential. And now they are meat. 

(Once he dreamed of a beautiful woman with flowers in her hair and fire in her eyes:  _how could I have cradled this monster to my breast, how could I, the death of children he killed them he --)_

 

 

_ \-- _

 

“What shall we call him?”

“I’ve always liked Chewbacca.”

“Good name.  _ Great _ name.”

He’s  _ Little Baby Chewie  _ up until three weeks before his birth. Then Luke visits. Luke with a scruff of beard and bright, merry eyes and he runs his palm over Leia’s swollen stomach and coos, “Hello nephew.” And later, the three of them huddled together, Luke nestled between Leia’s legs, her fingers tugging his hair into artful disarray (her mother braided her hair; it is her favourite childhood memory. Luke’s worked since he was old enough to stand on his own two feet -- there’s no room for luxury on Tatooine.)

Luke says, “I miss him,” and Leia knows exactly who is speaking of but answers anyway. (It unnerves Han when they start up conversations midway through, the bulk of communication happening inside their minds, bouncing back and forth effortlessly.)

“Ben?”

“He was like me. He was the only one like me.”

“There’ll be other Jedi kid,” says Han. He’s got his head resting against Leia’s shoulder. “You’ll train them.”

“He was like me,” Luke says again, stubborn in the way that only Leia’s brother is. Stubborn in the way that Skywalkers are: this is the way of the world, this is how it will be and if it is not  _ I will make it so _ . 

He sounds stubborn. Lost. Mornung. He’s never had time to mourn, not really, thrown from one battle to another, lost little farmboy growing up so fast -- and Leia and Luke aren’t the only ones who have entire conversations without moving their lips. Leia and Han look at each other. An accord is reached, between the two worst negotiators in the galaxy. 

 

\--

 

“Here’s your nephew,” says Leia. Her hair is a sweaty sprawl on the pillows. Her eyes star-bright with exhaustion. “Ben Chewbacca Organa-Solo.”

 

\--

 

In the end, it doesn’t matter what name they give him. 

He picks a new one. 

Starkiller base burns. Han is dead.

Leia collapses and weeps with the intensity of one vomiting on all fours. 

(Her boy isn’t dead. It would be easier if he was. No. He’s built himself a shell and locked himself away and somewhere behind that mask she imagines Ben Solo looking out and screaming  _ mama mama it’s so dark help me help me.)  _

(The alternative: he’s hollowed himself out, made himself a shell. Ben Solo is not locked away but grown up. What’s worse? Kylo Ren ate Ben Solo up, like a wolf in a story, or Kylo Ren is Ben Solo? The helmet hides his face, or the helmet is his face? Leia doesn’t know. She doesn’t.)

 

\--

 

Here’s a secret. 

Leia, for the majority of her adult life, despised her biological parents. 

Vader -- well. Obviously she did. He burned her planet. So what if he loved her, her brother? And? He was a monster. Is a monster. Loving one -- or even two -- people cannot undo the murder of billions. 

And Padme. That stupid little girl who loved a monster, bore his children, then up and died.  _ She gave up, her heart broke  _ \-- excuses, excuses. She had children. When Leia had Ben, she looked into his warm eyes and felt a hot feral surge: she would do anything to defend him, kill and die and maul; her teeth felt sharper than ever. 

But then --

Han dead. Ben gone. And Leia learns: a  heart does not break. 

A heart is not a pebble. It is not a thing made of stone, or wood, or bone; it does not splinter. It is muscle, hot and fierce, it expands with love and fury and contracts, pulling in blood and oxygen and fire and a heart such as Padme Amidala’s was brimful of love. Overspilling with it. And when her husband surrendered to the Dark Side (for that is what Anakin did: he surrendered, like a coward, like a -- )

(Leia has not forgiven her father. She probably never will)

Anyway. Husband gone. Kingdom so much rubble, children born to a poisonous legacy -- nothing a Skywalker builds can last --  her heart swelled up with fury and the awful, helpless love of a mother. 

She fought so  _ hard _ .

And Leia learns the truth of Padme Amidala’s heart.

It did not break, it  _ burst _ . 

 

\--

  
“I wonder what he’s thinking,” says Poe, “I wonder if -- “

“He’s dreaming of the ocean,” says Rey. “Of water, and peace. He’s...happy.”

 

\--

 

Rey’s a little sickened at herself: surely you don’t lie to people you love --

(We’ll be back soon I promise, says her mother, her father, oh so long ago and --)

(You don’t lie to those you love, you don’t, you don’t, so either they weren’t lying and  _ soon  _ has a very different meaning to the one she currently understands it to have -- or they didn’t --)

(They didn’t -- )

(Stop thinking about that.)

\-- but it’s been five days now, Poe’s not showered or slept, not properly, and now he rests his head on his chair arm and dozes a little, the corners of his mouth curving up. Perhaps he dreams of the ocean. Perhaps he imagines he shares Finn’s dreams. Perhaps he does. 

Rey hopes he does not, hopes with every sinew of her body. 

 

\--

 

Here is Finn’s dream:

Rey reaches up with sandbitten hands. Her skin is hard because she’s worked her entire life -- on Jakku those who cannot work do not eat -- but her eyes are kind and her touch is soft and Finn leans into it. She runs one finger down his cheek. She says, “It’s coming off,” and he does not know what she means until she takes his hand, flips it palm up and peels away a strip of flesh from his wrist to the crook of his arm. 

She holds it up like some desert trophy. She was a scavenger, after all, and she probably knows exactly how many portions of food human skin would get her. 

Finn blinks owlishly. “Why is that --” and she tugs away another strip, this one larger, revealing the stark white of his bones --

Only they are not his bones. It is armour, beetle-shell shiny, and it is not Rey but General Hux, smiling his carnivore smile: all teeth, with blood congealing on his gums. “You’re a Stormtrooper, FN-2187,” he says, “under it all, still, you are a Stormtrooper.”

 

\--

 

Here is another dream:

“Are you proud of me grandfather?”

_ Yes my boy. Yes I am, I am prouder than you could ever understand, you are a warrior, you are so bold and so good and so clever. You did the right thing, you did, you did. _

Kylo Ren, curled into Vader’s embrace. He is frightfully young, maybe fifteen, gawky and long-limbed, with blood rusting on his hands and matted into his hair. Vader strokes his head.

_ You are so good so clever the right thing the right --  _

His voice sticks and skips like a bad holocall. It hitches from robotic to human. His hand continues to move back and forth in the jerky, incoherent caress of one who has long forgotten what affection looks like. His hand is bleeding. It leaks through his black gauntlet. It puddles on the slant of Kylo Ren’s cheekbone, dribbles down in a streak of bright scarlet. 

Kylo Ren is no longer moving. He is no longer breathing. Vader continues to stroke, back and forth, back and forth: mindless. 

This is not Kylo Ren’s dream. 

Can you guess whose it is?

(Even the dead nightmare.)

 

\--

 

After Starkiller. After everything he built crumbled to nothing. 

Hux sits at his desk, his head in his hands. His face is red with blood. Most of it isn’t his. 

(Kylo Ren, that bastard, who could lose that much blood and still live?)

He should go to the refresher block. He should have a shower, a long and hot one, work the knots from his muscles. He should. 

He doesn’t. 

He can’t  _ breathe _ . There’s a thick, crushing weight in his lungs. His tongue is dead flesh. He --

He focuses. With tremendous difficulty, he stands. He locates a bottle of -- something. It’s alcohol. He finds a glass. He pours himself a glass. 

He stops. Sets the bottle down. Bites into the soft part of his cheek until he tastes copper. 

Then pours again. This time most of the alcohol ends up in the glass, rather than all over his table. 

 

\--

 

“Awake yet, Ren?” Hux drawls. He’s been tasked with bringing the broken down thing to  _ The Citadel  _ and he’s damned -- quite literally -- if the son-of-a-bitch dies before they get there. 

He’s not. Hux flicks a quick eye over the medical reports. The outlook is good. Ren’s just like his mother: fucking refuses to die. 

(Oh, they’ve tried. Of course they’ve tried! But Leia Organa is an elusive little bitch and effortlessly evades any assassin they send to her. She has even converted a couple to her cause, the canny she-wolf.) 

(An interesting fact: Brendol Hux the Elder -- not that anyone even mentions his name anymore; he’s been struck from the First Order records -- never called Leia Organa a  _ bitch _ .)

(Another interesting fact: Hux -- the Younger -- is a truly excellent artist. At the Academy, he drew a particularly cruel caricature of Leia, depicting her in congress with Jabba the Hutt and a pair of Gungans.  _ It’s political satire,  _ he had protested.  _ It’s meant to point out how she’s willing to swallow anything in negotiations --  _ )

(General Hux  -- the Elder -- had beaten him bloody.  _ She’s your enemy. A damn good soldier. Show some respect.) _

 

\--

 

There’s no respect in the First Order. No honour. Of course there isn’t. Victory, at all costs. 

That’s the  _ point _ . 

(They’re not the Empire. They’re hungry young creatures who want to swallow up the stars. Ask any old soldier: there’s nothing more dangerous than the fanatical young.)

(Ask Hux the Elder what he thinks of his boy now. Ask him. Or not. He’s dead and gone and the dead do not speak --)

(Oh wait. They do. Just no one  _ listens to them.) _

 

\--

 

“What’s he dreaming of now?” Poe asks. 

“Water,” says Rey.

“Home,” says Rey. 

(The lies are awful, slimy things in her throat. She spews them out because Poe’s pain already hangs around him like rancid flesh; she can’t bear to add to it.)

 

\--

 

Hux snatches sleep here and there, and never does he permit it to swallow him entirely. 

He rests with his head on his hand, machines whirring about him, Ren breathing on and on. Bastard. Won’t die. That’s the Organas for you. 

He wonders what Kylo is dreaming of. He hopes with every sinew and fibre of his being that it is deeply, deeply unpleasant. He deplores the idea of the boy slumbering peacefully while he must stand watch, twitchy with too much caf, his mouth sour with the thought of the Supreme Leader’s wrath.

 

\--

 

“You’re nothing,” says Phasma, conversationally. “Just a Stormtrooper,” and that’s what clues Finn in to the fact this is another dream: Phasma would never say  _ just a Stormtrooper  _ because to her there is no higher accolade than being one. “Just FN-2187,” she says, and Finn shows his teeth. Phasma, if she wanted to heap scorn upon his shoulders, would say this: you are nothing now; you are just Finn; you are not a trooper anymore. Once, you were a good soldier And now you are not. 

It would be that simple. 

The thing that is not Phasma shows its teeth. “Take off your skin,” it says, “and underneath you are still FN-2187, still a trooper. You’re nothing. You’re a weapon. You’re not a person at all.”

And Finn says, “Even when I was FN-2187 I was a person. You don’t  _ get _ it, do you? Someone doesn’t just stop being a person because you tell them that they aren’t.”

 

\--

 

“There are dogs in Arkansis,” says Hux conversationally. A whir, a beep: Ren slumbers on. “Arkansis is my schoolship. It’s where I grew up. Later on, we got a planet, settled it: Thalia Five. Anyway. Point is. There were dogs on the ship, descendants of pets, but half-feral and half-starved and often mad and we used them for target practice, hunted them down, shot through the head. It was kinder than letting them succumb to famine or fever or whatever madness convinced them that eating people was a viable life choice. You remind me of those dogs. Rabid. Pitiful.”

He pauses a moment. Then: “Of course, they were useful when there was an accident in training and you needed to dispose of a body or three. They would lick your hands after you fed them, grateful for the meal. How can you not see that that’s all you are?”

 

\--

 

“You know you can save him,” Kylo Ren says conversationally. 

Rey’s dreaming. She knows she’s dreaming because Kylo Ren is standing right there and she hasn’t cut his throat yet. She says, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your boy. You can save him. Would you like me to teach you how?”

“I want to wake up now.”

“Once there was a Sith Lord. He was great and powerful and learned how to conquer death itself --”

“Don’t be absurd. No one conquers death. Death just  _ is _ .”

“Ah yes. And your darling Finn will die because that is the way of the world.”

“Finn’s going to live. He has to.”

“Why? Because he’s brave? He’s good? Because you love him? The Force takes and takes and takes and you cannot save those you love unless you listen to me --”

“Liar,” says Rey. There’s a quiver behind her ribs. Hunger. Hunger and instinct and when she was ten she hit a man and kept hitting him because he would have taken her food from her and she would have died. This is the way of the world: sometimes you must do awful things to live. 

He sees her hesitate. He offers her his hand. He says, “All you need to do is turn to the Dark Side and you can save him. He’ll be with you forever.”

“I know,” says Rey. Tears hot on her cheeks. Teeth bared. Feral desert child and yes she is tempted, of course she is, she loves him more than words can ever say but she loves him and that is why -- “I love him. I love him so much and he would never forgive me if I hurt other people to save him. Don’t you get it? It’s  _ because _ I love him that I have to let him go on without my help, that I have to...watch him die. I have to. Because I love him. Because I love him and he is so good and kind and sweet and he did not kill for them, he would never kill for them, and loving someone sometimes means letting them go.”

 

\--

 

For those interested, here is a brief list of things Anakin Skywalker said to Padme Amidala:

  1. I love you
  2. I would die without you
  3. You are the best of me
  4. You are the only reason for my continued existence
  5. You are the stars 
  6. I love you
  7. You are everything
  8. I love you
  9. I would do anything for you
  10. I would do anything for you
  11. I would do anything to keep you
  12. I love you



Here is a brief list of things Anakin Skywalker did not say to Padme Amidala:

  1. What can I do for you
  2. How can I save you
  3. Do you want me to do this
  4. Do you want me to do this
  5. Do you want me to do this



  
  


\--

 

“Get some air.”

“I can’t -- “

“I’ll watch over him,” says the General. 

Poe shakes his head. “I’ll stay.”

General Organa slants him a sad smile. 

She thinks, fondly:  _ flyboys, you are all the same, oh how fiercely you love -- _

Rey hovers. She blinks. Her mouth wrestles with words she can’t spit out and that’s when Leia remembers that this is a girl who grew up alone, grew up desolate, flinched when she was held. She’s a lost feral desert child, like Luke was -- except. No. Not Luke. Rey’s never even had parents who loved her --

(Ben did. Ben had parents who loved him so very much and look what happened --)

\-- and Leia stands up. Holds out her arms. It’s a question, because you don’t touch lost feral things unless they ask you to. 

Rey steps forwards. Her tears are warm as Tatooine’s rare rains. 

 

\--

 

_ Okay, so think of it like this: the cat might not wake up.  _

_ It doesn’t mean that it was a bad cat or a good cat. It just means that it won’t wake up.  _

_ Because sometimes even if people are the best people in the world...sometimes they don’t wake up.  _

_ Open the box.  _

_ The cat’s dead.  _

_ What then? _

_ Yes BB-8, I am very well. I know I haven’t slept in a while. I don’t know why I’m rambling about cats.  _

_ I love you too.  _

  
  
\--

 

Poe's been thinking. 

Poe's been thinking about a lot and what he's been thinking is this: Finn was a Stormtrooper. 

Stormtroopers wear masks. That's what they do. Those big heavy helmets that make them look like albino cave beetles. Bucketheads. Faceless monstrous things and you shoot them down and you don't ever see them bleed because they are dressed up in heavy white armour and they are faceless. And they are nothing. And they are numbers and that is what the First Order made them because that makes them good soldiers, and that is what Poe sees them as because that is what makes him a good soldier. 

You can't kill someone you think of as a human. 

Well. You can. But it is harder, it is so much harder.

So you think: they are numbers. They are monsters. They have no faces. 

Sometimes you tally them off. On your wings. On the wings of your X Wing, scratch marks to demarcate how many TIE fighters you have shot down and in each one was a trooper, in each one was someone who looked like Finn. 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yeah this is a little bit of a mindfuck. all over the place. this fic turned into 'a place for radi to dump all her half-thought out ficlets'. hope you like it.

Cry Havoc, part ii

  
  


Chewie is worse than useless during Han’s attempts to woo Leia. 

_ “She’s snapping at you a lot, _ ” says the Wookie hopefully. 

“Yeah, Chewie that ain’t a good thing. Human girls don’t snap at boys they like.”

_ “Her insults are wonderfully precise. She gives them a lot of thought. And she respects your prowess in battle _ .” A pause. Han looks so  _ doleful _ . His hands are splayed into his headfur -- woefully insufficient; no wonder he’s cold all the time -- and his jaw is tight. “ _ When I was courting my mate I brought her the fresh heart of a slaver. She was most appreciative. She threw a chair at me and challenged me to a duel. _ ”

Han prises his face from his hands. “You think I should bring Leia a heart?”

“ _ It can’t hurt,”  _ says Chewie. 

 

\--

 

“Marry me, smuggler.”

The ring isn’t what he expected: heavy, bronze, a little too large. It looks familiar, somehow, but he couldn’t say  _ why _ . 

“I had it made,” she says. “Found a metalworker offworld. Charged me a fortune.”

She doesn’t say  _ so do you like it _ because she is Leia, princess and soldier, and her eyes are full of starlight -- and that’s not some syrupy nonsense, because have you ever seen a star? Up close? It burns white and hot and hungry and only fools get too close. 

(Han Solo is a fool. Of course he is.)

“It’s -- it’s beautiful.” That’s not the right word. “It looks -- “

And then it clicks. The metal: bronze, sleek. When it hits the light there’s a faint red sheen, like the afterimage of sunset, and there’s an old Corellian legend about metal having memory, about haunted weapons holding the souls of those who have wielded them, those who have died because of them. 

“You carried it?”

“It reminded me,” says Leia, “of what happens to those who would try and enslave me; to those who would try and hurt the ones I love.”

Star-eyes and wolf-teeth and Han is so in love he could die. He weds Leia three months later, wearing a ring forged from the chain that choked Jabba the Hutt into death.

(Leia’s the one who brings him a heart. Of course she is.)

 

\--

 

“ _ Once there was a good and brave man,”  _ moans Uncle Chewie, “ _ and he ventured far and wide over the stars and he fought pirates and got himself captured. And he was saved by a lovely princess, covered head to foot in the most luxurious white fur, with the sharpest teeth he had ever seen. And together they hunted down the pirates who had caught him, and ate them all up _ .”

“Chewie! Stop telling the kid Wookie fairy stories!”

 

\--

 

(Even when he couldn’t bear to see the ring on his finger anymore, Han wore it around his throat. It was lost when he fell.) 

 

\--

 

Loving a Skywalker is like loving a star, Han would say. It burns and burns and burns but oh how glorious it is. 

There’s another lover. Another spouse. Ask her. Ask her, if you can find her -- she’s still around, somewhere, in the Outer Rim because she’s not strong with the Force but she is bitter and furious and oh so strong and more than that, more than any of that, she is a  _ mother _ and mothers do not abandon their children.

(Haven’t you ever wondered how in the name of all that is and was holy Anakin did not find his children sooner?)

 

\--

 

This is what it is to be Padme: you are trapped. 

You don’t want to be trapped. You tell yourself you are not. You are a Senator, a Queen, swelling with child. You are in love.

( _ if you left if you left i would die _ , he says. This is because Anakin loves you more than the world, more than the galaxy, he’d burn up without you. _ if you left i’d die i’d die here is my light sabre hold it like you hold my heart in your hands. precious, beautiful thing.  _ He looks at you like you are an ange _ l _ .)

(You are not an angel. You are flesh. You are bone. But to him, you are transcendent.)

(You do not want to be this. You have no choice. Anakin Skywalker names you beloved and some part of you knows that this is a snare more keen than anything but –)

(You are Padme. You are in love.)

(This is what it is to be Padme: you cannot  _ breathe _ from the weight of his love. You are a politician. You smile. You smile. You smile.)

Obi Wan asks you about trade negotiations. Obi Wan knows you as Queen, Senator, Handmaiden. He knows you wield a blaster better than most, but also that the dark frightens you. He knows you are flesh and bone and human. He  _ knows _ . 

(Sometimes, you smile at him. He has soft eyes and gentle hands and you wonder –)

You cut that thought short. You do not allow it to bloom.

(Anakin can read your mind. He delights in reading your mind. He says that your thoughts are the brightest stars in the sky.)

(You do not think of Obi Wan.)

 

\--

 

She finds him not long after the embers of the bonfire cool. She stands with a durasteel-straight spine, her hair pinned up in ornamental buns, her dress long and starlight-silver, fretwork of blue fire spinning over her breasts in a bodice like none earthly hands can make. She is beautiful. 

There is  a child in her arms. 

“Padme,” says Anakin Skywalker, the boy-king who burned up the entire galaxy to save the women he loved. 

“Who is this?” she says, and for a moment he thinks she is addressing the boy; but then he realises that her eyes are on him. Her mouth is set in the hard smile of a politician giving an answer she does not want to give. 

“A boy,” says Anakin, uneasy now. He is of the Force; he is part of the Force; they are one and the same; and the air around him is greasy with – with what? Fear? Why would there be fear? He is here, in this hallowed place, with his lover, his queen, the mother of his children – “I do not know his name.”

(He is part of the Force. There is no fear in the Force – is there – )

The boy is sand-haired and small. “I didn’t think you would,” says Padme. 

“Master Skywalker,” says the boy. His voice sticks and skips like a bad holocall connection. His gaze is fixed on some distant point. “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them, what shall we do?”

He remembers. He remembers fire, the smell of ash, small bodies –

“You destroyed everything,” spits the Queen of Naboo, the champion of democracy, the women with bruises blackening her pale throat, “everything I built. You burned it down.”

“To save you,” says Anakin. The words are thin. Frail. “I love you –”

“That isn’t enough,” says Padme. And then, “You took my children. You took my home. I – I will not forgive you. There’s blood on your hands, Ani, and it is not my job to wipe it off and gentle your brow and tell you that all those killings are forgiven.”

A moment and then, “I died so scared of you,” she says. Her voice is very small. 

And she fades away.

 

\--

 

Here is a girl, before her death:

She’s born to rule. She knows this. She knows that  _ being born to rule  _ is a very different thing from  _ being allowed to rule;  _ she is taught from birth that she  _ can _ be a queen -- but that does not mean she is entitled to be one. “Paddie, Paddie,” her father croons, brushing her long hair out, “you have to remember -- we vote for our monarchy. And what does that mean?”

“That you must deserve to rule. That you must be worthy. That your crown comes at the behest of your people. That to rule is a privilege and not a right.”

“And what does a good queen do?”

“Put her people first. Always, always,  _ always _ .”

Padme is six years old. She swings her legs back and forth. Her feet do not touch the ground. 

 

\--

 

“We rule,” says Obi-Wan, “we balance the Force. We’re Jedi -- it is our birth-right.”

Right, thinks Anakin. It is my right. It is my  _ right _ . 

(That’s the difference.)

(No one elects Jedi. They are born. They have their power given to them by that hungriest of monsters, the Force, and they are raised with the song of prophecy in their ears.)

(Some would say that Anakin Skywalker never had a choice.)

(Padme Amidala thinks of small, broken bodies -- she would like to vehemently disagree.)

 

\--

Padme is fourteen when she is elected to the throne. She is young, but by no means the youngest, and she tips her chin up, robes weighing heavy on her shoulders. She keeps her spine straight, and her smile soft, and she is a politician first and foremost -- but still, the night of her coronation she gathers her handmaidens to her, these girls who may well die for her. 

“Once,” she says to them, “there was a council. They were wise and learned men and women, and from their number they elected a queen. She was young, but she was wise, and she listened and listened well. And one day, she heard word of a great and terrible monster devouring farmers at the edges of her kingdom. She gathered her advisors to her and asked them what they would have her do. The advisors represented all she ruled over, the rich and poor, the young and old, and one -- a fire-eyed girl with teeth sharp as stone -- said, ‘You must set a fire, you must destroy this beast.’ And the queen listened, for the words of the young are often untempered by the prejudice of age. And a man bent-backed and aged said, ‘You must barter; you must make peace’. And the queen listened, for the words of the aged are based upon the wisdom of years. And she spake thus, ‘I will go to the monster, and I shall ask him what he desires’. And she did so. And the monster said, ‘You are the most beautiful of all women, and the kindest. I would have you as my bride and no more would I hunt the innocent.’ And though the queen wanted to weep bitter tears, she did not, for her people always came first. And she said, ‘As you will it, so it shall be’. And so she wed the beast and kept her people safe. For this is the duty of a queen.”

As her soft, sweet voice faded she sees that a few of her handmaidens have bright, wet eyes. They are so very young. But so is she. And they have a duty. 

She squeezes the hand of the nearest (Sabe) and smiles. “For this is the duty of a queen,” she says, echoing the words of her father, “to put her people first. Always. Always. Always.”

 

\--

 

What her father did not realise -- what Padme did not know until it was too late -- was this. Putting others first, always and always, is a slow, venomous way to die. 

You give and you give and you give. And some people give in return, and replenish you, and some do not. 

Some people are too hungry to ever be sated. 

Some people drink up your light and leave nothing.

Some people kiss you, so gentle and so sweet, and croon words of love and swallow you whole. 

 

\--

 

A lesson Padme did not learn in time: when a boy shows you his teeth and tells you that you are his sun and his stars, his moon and his light, his angel and his galaxy -- you  _ run _ . 

A lesson Padme wished she could have taught her daughter: you are a woman. You are bone. You are blood. Do not ever forget this. Do not be with a boy who wants you to forget this. 

When he puts you on a pedestal, the only way down is to fall. 

 

\--

 

Here is what Leia remembers of her mother:  _ she was beautiful. But...very sad _ . 

Beautiful. Yes. Padme is -- was -- beautiful. 

(She hears her daughter say these words and she  _ wails _ . She is sharp teeth. She is bitter. She is so full of pain she could die from it.)

(Well. She is dead already. The sentiment is the same.)

_ Daughter, child-mine, first-born. If you had been mine I would have brushed your long hair back and said that a Queen may put her people first but a woman, oh a woman, she must put herself first for there are men out there will see your raw and glowing heart and they will eat it up. _

Having said this, Breha is a good mother to Leia. She is calm and kind and she does not say  _ others must always come first _ ; she says  _ we must do good _ and  _ we have a responsibility to those we care for  _ and these are all good lessons. Padme remembers a girl, a very small girl with wide eyes and feet that did not touch the floor, a girl who was never taught how to draw a line between  _ you are queen  _ and  _ you are a wife _ . Queen at fourteen; mother before her twenty fifth year; and she tried to be all things to everyone; and she thought her life was a democracy (the greatest good for anyone and everyone but not her --)

Breha, sometimes, reprimands Leia for her selfishness. For her quick temper and her spite, for her tongue and her teeth. Padme’s so full of pride in those moments, so happy for her firebrand firespit daughter who will  _ never _ permit anyone to eat her heart up to nothing.

(How does Anakin manage to  _ not find  _ his twins for so long? Well. Padme may be dead but she is a  _ mother _ . She protects her children. Always, always,  _ always _ .)

 

\--

 

Hux is eighteen when he first meets Kylo Ren. 

(Kylo wants to be his friend. Kylo is desperate, desperate for affection and does not know this and does not know how to express this and --)

(Look. He’s a boy. A child. A Skywalker snatched from his home and told that he is destined for greatness, for nothing but greatness, told that he alone can save the galaxy and that his folly is strength and his brutality is good and he is a spoiled, spoiled child because Snoke gives him everything he wants and nothing he needs.)

Anyway. Hux meets Kylo Ren and what could happen is this:

Kylo Ren falls in love with a boy who wants to swallow up the stars.

He loves. And to be a Skywalker and to love is to love with your whole body, your whole being, bear-trap durasteel-tooth love, you cannot escape it. It devours you. Every cell of his body is mad with longing.

He loves, he loves, he loves; loves as his grandfather loved, as his mother loved. And together they kill Snoke, rip him asunder like the young wolves they are, and afterwards Kylo Ren finds a mirror and stares in it and a boy who once had fireflies spun into his hair stares back. A voice says:  _ always always always _ . A voice says:  _ you are better than Vader ever was _ . 

And, through this love, Kylo Ren  _ changes _ . He loves and loves and loves and loves Hux and finds himself thinking: I love this one man, why can I not love another? And he finds that once his heart has opened a crack it can open further and that love, that awful and changing love, gets into his bloodstream and one day he looks in the mirror and sees not a mask but a boy, a lost and a scared boy, and behind him stands a woman with stars in her hair. 

_ There is a choice. Always, always, always. You are better than your grandfather. Tell me: what does it mean when you love one person and let the rest of the universe burn? _

And, later:   
  


“What shall I call you?” says the boy that is Ben, the boy that is healing, the boy with blood congealing on his face. 

“General will suffice,” says Hux. His eyes are bright as stars. His spine unbent. 

(Kylo hears his thoughts:  _ yes yes I am the General now and always and I am proud and to hear those words on your tongue would please me) _

And Ben-Kylo says, “You would love it if I called you General, would you not? You should weep to hear it. You should spit the name out like blood on your tongue. You should break every one of your teeth rather than smile at the sound of that title. You should. And you don’t. You are proud of what you have done.”

Hux blinks. ( _ yes of course i am proud of course – and proud of you too, proud of you, my Kylo –I care for you. I never thought I could care and I do – I love you –) _

_ “ _ That is no redemption,” says Kylo, flatly. “I don’t doubt you love me. I don’t doubt you  _ care _ for me. But you don’t care for the millions you killed; you still wish to be called General; it gets you  _ hard _ to think of that name on my tongue and –” Kylo shows his teeth. (Ben shows his teeth.)

The sabre swings. General Hux’s head topples from his shoulders. 

His last expression is one of surprise.

 

\--

 

That’s not what happens. It could happen, and it doesn’t, but it is what the Force chooses to show Kylo Ren. He does not recall it on waking, because although the Force sings prophecy in his ear he chooses not to listen. 

Here is what it is to be Kylo Ren: you never listen to what you do not wish to hear.

 

\--

 

This does happen, because Kylo Ren wants friends, wants affection, and does not understand that he wants them. He tells himself that his solitude is glorious and almost almost believes:

  
Millicent doesn’t patter up to Hux in the manner she normally does. There’s no rusty  _ miaow _ , demanding food (not affection, because Millicent despises undue fussing; Hux can relate.)

He whistles for her. Nothing. The door swishes shut behind him and –

His room smells of cooked meat. Burning hair.

(No –)

“Attachments make you weak,” says Kylo. He’s leaning up against the wall like something dredged from the depths of the oceans, fish-white flesh and oilspill hair. “You know that.”

Hux’s blood sings static in his ears. The points of his fingers are cold, and the chill just spreads, over his skin like fungus and heading straight for his bones. “You killed my fucking cat,” he says.

“She was an attachments. Attachments are unhealthy.” He’s not angry. He’s not jealous. He’s speaking with the calm, even tones of someone imparting a lesson. Like a  _ teacher _ . 

“You killed my cat,” he says, again. His thoughts are one hitching loop. The image that surfaces: Millicent, sprawled slumbering at his feet as he worked. She was old. She was bitter. She was  _ his _ .  

He can almost hear her still, her rasping breathing, her –

Oh  _ Force _ . 

He can still hear her. “She’s not dead,” he says, his breath congealing in his throat, blood buzzing in his ears. “Is she?”

“It is part of the lesson,” says Kylo. He’s so  _ patient _ . “You must rid yourself of the attachments. This is what the Supreme Leader has told me. It is what I want to pass onto you.”

She’s in the refresher room. She’s not dead, not yet

(charred and broken and blackened fur and crisped skin and it was a lightsabre that did this, a cowardly weapon, a  _ hideous  _ weapon designed to hurt not kill)

and Hux gentles his palm over her ears before snapping her neck. His eyes are hot and itchy. His fingers bite red crescents into his palms. 

“It is important to suffer,” says Kylo, gently. “So that we may transcend the petty bonds of humanity and truly embrace the Dark Side.”

“If you don’t get the hell out of my rooms,” says Hux, “I’m going to kill you.”

“A good start General,” says Kylo, and he’s gone. 

Hux is alone. 

 

\--

 

Once, there was a boy. He did what he thought his grandfather would have wanted. He knows that Lord Vader massacred Jedi, for they were weak and unworthy.

He finds Fulcrum in the Outer Rim. Her lightsabre is clean and white and shines oh so brightly, castling wild shadows at her feet, and she is faster than any he has ever fought. He is already known as the Jedi Killer, and he has told his grandfather this many, many times. He never hears a response, but he imagines that Vader is watching him, proud that his legacy is being continued, proud that the Jedi who cast him down are being slaughtered like the animals they are.

“I had a master, once,” says Fulcrum. Her flanks heave. Her eyes are surrounded by corrugated skin; she is old. She is old, and she is tired. “He told me no one would ever hurt me. He lied. Masters lie, and Snoke is no exception –”

Kylo Ren parries, twists, and plunges his lightsabre through her heart. 

Later that night, he curls around his grandfather’s helmet. “She’s the last of them, I think. She’s gone. She died so  _ poorly _ .”

( _ snips snips snips oh i am sorry i am so sorry) _

_ ( _ Anakin can apologise all he likes. It doesn’t change what has happened.)

(Once, a boy did what he thought his grandfather wanted. All his grandfather could do was watch, and weep.)

 

\--

 

Anyway. Enough lollygagging. Kylo Ren wakes. He attends his training. Hux dies not three months later, blaster bolt to the head. 

The revolution starts. 

It could have happened differently. 

It does not. 

 

\--

 

Luke knows that the Force is a wild beast. It is terrible. It is beautiful. It stoops to nuzzle at your palm and, in its gentleness, amputates your hand at the wrist. It laps the blood up. It looks at you with great, dark eyes and does not apologise. 

The Force does not apologise. The Force does not know the meaning of the word.

It would be easier, Luke thinks, if the Force was deliberately cruel. If the Force was willful, malicious – the sort of ancient and awful god that called for the blood of children (and doves and lambs and whole planets, Alderaan swallowed in one gulp) – then, perhaps, you could hate it. Perhaps you could shun it – or try to. 

But the Force is not cruel. Not intentionally so. It has sharp teeth and all the emotion of a storm. It is hungry, endlessly so, and it welcomes lost children to its heart and it cradles them close and lets them grow strong and proud and then it eats them up, using their power to rear the next brood of strong, proud things and it forgets that breathing greatness into lungs too small to hold all that power leads only to death. 

It swallows up those it nurtures. It is the worst kind of mother, and he will never be free of it.

  
  


\--

 

This is what it is to be Luke Skywalker: a man turning to stone. 

He sits there for minutes, for hours, for days, until salt clots his beard and spit gums his lips together and bones poke sharp against his robes and he still does not move. His eyes are closed. His lids filmed with seaspray. Small animals become accustomed to his presence and do not interpret the rise-fall of his chest as a sign of life. 

In his head: the past. 

He plays it over and over. Every decision. Every choice.  _ There is always a choice _ , this he knows, and all he can do is look over his, again and again, trying to find which he made wrong. Was it permitting Ben into the Order? Was it letting Snoke anywhere near the Academy? Being too trusting? Not being trusting enough? Does he have too much of the Light in him, or not enough?

He asks the ghosts for guidance. They are silent. 

(This is a temple, old and broken bones. There are no gods here.)

And, after a while, the pain in his stomach grows too great. He stands. He shakes salt from his face and rubs feeling into his limbs and forces food into his throat. 

The next day, he sits. He does it again. He remembers the old stories. He does not attempt to start a new one. 

 

\--

 

And back on D’Qar, Rey plants living things in the earth. The soil is so wet under her hands, luxurious in its moisture. She cannot believe that all she needs to is pull out two fistfuls of dirt and uncover pools of brackish water.

Seeds. Bulbs. She plants and digs and plants until her muscles ache and then she stands, popping her spine and staring at the expanse of night sky. 

The next day, she boards the Falcon and goes in search of Luke Skywalker. 

 

\--

 

The day after, the garden is so tangled with vegetation that one cannot see where one plant ends and another starts. The air is thick with scent. 

In the middle, a tree with blue-green leaves hungers towards the sun. 

And in the medbay, Finn awakes. 


End file.
